E-book devices haven't exactly taken the world by storm, but there's plenty
of hope for them yet, according to Bill Gates. "Reading is going to go
completely online," said Microsoft's chairman this week at the company's
Strategic Account Summit, in Seattle. Mr. Gates acknowledged that the size and
cost of e-book readers have kept many people from doing more digital reading.
But those disincentives won't last forever, he said:

"Today, for people who read newspapers and
magazines, even the most avid PC user probably still does quite a bit of
reading on print. As the device moves down in size and simplicity, that will
change, and so somewhere in the next five-year period we'll hit that
transition point, and things will be even more dramatic than they are
today."